1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to shooter and target games for children, and more particularly to a game in which a shooter-player is provided with a water gun that when triggered projects a water beam in the direction in which the gun is aimed, and in which a target player wears a vest having a target zone therein which when struck and made wet by the water beam, then produces a switching action to activate a battery-powered unit which emits an audible or visible signal indicative of a hit.
2. Status of Prior Art
A game whose popularity with children is of long standing is one involving a mock battle between "good" and "bad" guys. These good and bad guys may assume many different guises, such as cowboys and indians, cop and robbers, humans and outer-space aliens or whatever other hostile opponents are in vogue with children. But regardless of the character of the opponents, the theme common to these games is that a player provided with a toy weapon assumes the role of a shooter seeking to strike an opposing player who acts as a target. In most such games, each player is both a shooter and target.
In recent years, the usual toy weapon for playing shooter-target games has been a laser-beam gun, the shooter-player who holds this gun shooting out a simulated laser beam which he aims in the direction of a target worn by an opposing player. Thus the Scarlari et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,715 discloses a toy laser pistol which includes a flash unit to generate, when the gun is triggered, a burst of high-intensity light. The light is collimated to produce a beam simulating a laser beam. A vest worn by a player who acts as the target is provided with a target area of fluorescent material. This material glows to indicate a hit when a light beam from the toy laser gun strikes the fluorescent target area.
In my above-identified co-pending application there is disclosed a war game assembly for children involving at least two opposing toy vehicles, each having a battery-powered motor for driving the vehicle whereby a player in a driver's seat in the cockpit can steer his vehicle in the direction of the opposing vehicle to engage the vehicle in combat. Each vehicle is provided in front of the cockpit with a laser beam turret gun powered by the vehicle battery, making it possible for the driver to aim the beam toward the opposing vehicle, the gun when triggered producing gun shot sounds.
Mounted on the fender of each vehicle is a hit register having a photodetector which when struck by a beam emanating from the other vehicle, produces both an indication of a hit and counts the number of hits scored. Hence in simulated combat, players driving in opposing vehicles each seek to score the greatest number of hits.
The major drawback of a laser-beam toy gun is that the light beam projected therefrom when the gun is triggered is not visible under daylight conditions, thereby making it necessary to generate shooting sounds so that one is then aware that a beam is being projected. And when as in the Scarlari patent, this target is a fluorescent area, this area is ineffective in daylight hours when it is exposed to natural light, for the target is then always "on".
Toy weapons which shoot out a water beam that can be aimed at an opposing player have obvious advantages over laser beam guns. With a watergun, a player can in the daytime see the beam of water and also see when this beam strikes an opposing player and where he has hit the player.
But the disadvantage of a water gun, even those currently available which are capable of projecting a water beam over a relatively long distance, is that when the beam strikes and wets a player there is nothing to then indicate that the target has been hit or where it has been hit other than the fact that the target is wet in the region struck by the water beam. But a wet target does not look very different from the same target when dry.